In 1951 the Lasker Award was given Alcoholics Anonymous.
The citation reads in part as follows:

The American Public Health Association presents
a Lasker Group Award for 1951 to Alcoholics Anonymous in recognition
of its unique and highly successful approach to that age-old public
health and social problem, alcoholism . . . In emphasizing alcoholism
as an illness, the social stigma associated with this condition is
being blotted out . . . Historians may one day recognize Alcoholics
Anonymous to have been a great venture in social pioneering which
forged a new instrument for social action; a new therapy based on
the kinship of common suffering; one having a vast potential for the
myriad other ills of mankind.